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The danger of distraction

The stories number in the thousands of those who have lost loved ones because of a distracted driver.

On the web site for AT&T’s It Can Wait campaign, one man wrote of why he has pledged to stop texting.

“Last night my girlfriend was in a car accident due to her reading a text message that I sent her,” he wrote. “Now she can’t feel her left leg.”

Whether it’s texting, talking on the phone, or yelling at your child in the back seat to be quiet, distractions have joined alcohol and speeding as a leading factor in crashes involving serious injury or death, according to the National Safety Council.

To combat the death toll, some states or cities have changed laws. But there has also been a proliferation of public awareness campaigns, like the one run by AT&T, to end distracted driving and in particular, texting.

Recently, both the San Antonio Police Department and Fire Department have stressed the dangers of distracted driving, especially among teens.

And last week, leading into distracted driving awareness month which started today, telecom giant AT&T released survey results about texting and driving. The company also hopes to expand the It Can Wait campaign that started in 2009.

And while the results didn’t say anything ground breaking, it did garner nationwide headlines and bring attention to the number of people who say they text and drive.

“There’s clearly a lot more work that needs to be done to change texting and driving behavior,” said AT&T spokeswoman Lisa Marie Gomez. “There are too many accidents, and not just the kids, it’s the adults.”

The results were culled from an online survey of 1,011 respondents. They had to drive themselves to work, own a cell phone and be 18 or older, Gomez said.

And while the survey garnered national attention, what they found essentially mirrored that of past studies–nearly everyone knows that texting while driving is dangerous, yet half of those people still do it.

Specifically, the AT&T survey found that 98 percent of those surveyed said it was dangerous but 49 percent still texted or sent emails while driving.

The survey also showed that adults text more than teens, something that has been mirrored in past studies by researchers.

However, what age group makes up that 49 percent of adults who text in the AT&T survey wasn’t known.

For example, in a Center for Disease Control and Prevention study released in March, researchers tracked cell use while driving. That study, which compared American use to that of Europe, found that in the 30 days prior to taking the survey, those ages 18-34 were most likely to send or read texts or emails than older age groups.

The AT&T survey also reported that 6 in 10 of the respondents didn’t text while driving three years ago. The study didn’t distinguish between those who didn’t text at all three years ago or those that texted but didn’t text while driving.

Gomez said the survey will be bring attention to the dangers and in turn hopefully change behavior.

“Our goal is to save lives,” Gomez said about the surveys and the It Can Wait campaign. “We are doing everything we can to get the messages out there. This is just as unacceptable as drinking and driving.”

For more information on the It Can Wait campaign, visit itcanwait.com.

Other resources included: distraction.gov, the federal government’s official page on distracted drivers and the National Safety Council, www.nsc.org.